Our Co-Design Journey Part 1: Impressions of Lambeth
For the past few months, we’ve been supporting our friends at Lambeth Council in the rebranding and relaunching of its Housing Repairs Services – a pretty exciting project we’re pretty excited to be part of. But we didn’t want the transformation to be all about us, or even all about Lambeth. We wanted it to be rooted in the community it serves and the people who rely on it the most.
To create a service that Lambeth residents can genuinely identify with and, most importantly, that they can trust, we decided to take a “co-design” approach to the rebrand, involving locals in the process and creating ways to include them at every step.
Our journey began with Impressions of Lambeth, a creative on street engagement workshop that allowed us to speak with residents about what they love about their neighbourhood, and give them a chance to leave their mark on the rebrand.
In three key Lambeth locations (Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens, Brixton Market and Streatham Common) we asked passers-by what their neighbourhood means to them. We invited them to print their impressions, thoughts and feelings onto a giant banner using block-printing letters (we also had a bank of ready-made words for those short on time or inspiration). The finished result? An eclectic, authentic print that not only showcases the spirit of the Lambeth community, but that can be used to inform the final rebrand of the Housing Repairs Service in terms of style, tone and sentiment.
As a naturally sociable studio, we loved being out and about in the community; listening to residents’ stories about life in Lambeth and creating an open and accessible space for self-proclaimed “non-creatives” to express themselves via a crafty activity. But the true value of taking to the street was what we learned from our conversations.
Speaking to residents first-hand allowed us to collect their insights and feedback in relation to the Housing Repairs Service specifically. Through chatting to them, we learned that their relationship with the service is in need of a little repair itself – something that we’ll continue to consider and address throughout the project. Exchanges like this prompted us to rework some of our future plans, and we’ve since scheduled an additional workshop where residents are invited to share their thoughts on how their neighbourhood could be improved – with Council member and Assistant Director of the Housing Repairs Service Andrew Jacques present to hear their concerns.
Co-design is an evolutionary process; the more we feed into it, the more robust and relevant our output will be. Impressions of Lambeth is just the beginning of our journey, and we’ll continue to work with the community to grow an understanding of their wants and needs, which we can then channel into the transformation of the Housing Repairs Service.
The final rebrand will be unveiled in a community exhibition, where we’ll also showcase the various steps of our collaborative journey and the co-design goodness we’ve gathered along the way. Stay tuned for dates and details.
If you’d like to chat about co-design, collaborating or anything else, you can email us at hello@noble.studio – we’d love to hear from you!